European Youth Award 2017: Erase All Kittens
Erase All Kittens is a web-based platform game that teaches girls aged 8-14 real coding languages, eliminating their fear of technology by gamifying the learning process.Only a quarter of girls know anything about coding, most see it as ‘more for boys’. This beautifully designed project provides an innovative way to help close the gender gap in technology. Disruptive of expectations and immersed in the culture of the target audience, Erase all Kittens lets users laugh and learn while advancing through the immersive story with interactive dialogue and engaging rewards. The rich characters and insanely funny narrative are incredibly engaging to girls. As players progress, they can edit the code governing the game environment, learning HTML syntax by building and fixing levels as they play. In-built teaching and assessment tools provide an easy method for educators to teach this subject. In future, the game will offer HTML, CSS and Javascript in a ‘learning-by-doing’ way to build real websites and web apps. Erase All Kittens inspires girls to code, becoming creators rather than consumers of technology while promoting gender equality.
